


Don't tell me to calm down

by kineticallyanywhere



Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)
Genre: Barry Oak almost shows up, Barry Oak or whatever his name is can die by my hand, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, No! Henry Does Not Shower In This One, Panic Attacks, in line right behind Willy, post episode 38
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25517617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kineticallyanywhere/pseuds/kineticallyanywhere
Summary: It takes Henry a while to wake up. Ron tried to shake him awake when Henry’s dad first left, but whatever magic he used to knock Henry out must have been too strong. The bed Henry's on looks comfortable enough, at least. And the ground next to it isn't cold, so Ron doesn't mind sitting here to wait.Henry's not doing great, lads.
Relationships: Henry Oak & Ron Stampler
Comments: 15
Kudos: 112





	Don't tell me to calm down

**Author's Note:**

> That new episode came out and I have some feelings regarding our new freak out duo

It takes Henry a while to wake up. Ron tried to shake him awake when Henry’s dad first left, but whatever magic he used to knock Henry out must have been too strong. The bed Henry's on looks comfortable enough, at least. And the ground next to it isn't cold, so Ron doesn't mind sitting here to wait. 

He already snooped through the whole room. It looks like it belongs to some tidy teenager, but Ron recognizes the dryness of dust still in the air. It hasn't been used in some time. Ron wonders if the kid would mind a stinky guy like Henry using his bed. Ron's pretty sure it belongs to a boy. He's not entirely sure what the clothing rules are here but the clothes in the wardrobe look a lot like Henry’s dad’s.

Ron is rubbing his shirt in absent circles on the lens of Henry’s glasses when there’s a noise behind him. His nose is already all scrunched by the time Ron’s turned around. He wiggles an arm out from under the blankets and runs it down his face. Slowly he blinks his eyes open to the ceiling. Ron doesn’t think he’s ever seen Henry this tired. He realizes he’s never watched Henry wake up before. 

And then the moment’s over. Henry lets out a short, panicked shout and sits bolt upright in the bed. Instead of looking around at where he is, his eyes clamp shut again and he presses the heels of his hands into them. Ron wonders if magic sleep spells come with hangovers. 

For now he's just happy to stop waiting. "Henry!" 

Henry flinches. Blinks down at Ron. Squints at him. "Ron?" 

Henry looks different without his glasses-- oh! "Oh!" Ron says, "Here," and hands Henry his glasses. As Henry puts them back on, Ron explains, "Your dad took them off for you."

" _My dad?"_ Henry, newly envisioned, jerks his head around, taking in the room more frantically than he usually examines a location. He's been a little off ever since The Poop, but this is even worse. He hisses, " _Shit_ ," and scrambles out of the bed. 

Ron stands up with him. 

“Ron, _what_ \-- how are--” 

Ron was hoping that taking a nap would have put Henry back into being the Chill One, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Ron _really_ doesn't like being the Chill One. Comparatively. 

After a small eternity where Ron feels his own blood pressure rising, Henry asks, “How are you here?”

“I made a series of improbable stealth moves,” Ron explains.

Henry tilts his head back and forth like he expected that. "Then did. Did I pass out? My father took me here?" 

"Yeah, you got kinda quiet and he did some kinda magic thing and you fell asleep," Ron explains. 

"And he brought me here."

"Yeah!" 

"And you followed."

"Yeah!" 

"Okay, okay, okay…" Henry still looks like he just did some jumping jacks. “Wh--” His hands seem to find something on himself they don’t understand. He looks down. “Why am I wearing this-- where are my clothes?”

“Your dad took them,” Ron says. 

Henry's eyes go wide and his arms wrap around himself. “You didn’t stop him?” Henry says. His voice is getting a little squeaky. 

Ron shuffles a bit. “I mean, they were pretty stinky--”

“ _Ron_ \-- no,” Henry stops himself. “He’s. No." 

"He did some sorta magic floaty thing, I _barely_ saw your butt--"

Henry interrupts with a sharp _hmm_. "It’s alright, Ron, he could have killed you, it-- it’s fine.” 

“Okay…” Ron says. Then he adds, “It doesn’t _seem_ fine.” 

Henry runs a hand through his hair. “God, you’re right, Darryl’s rubbing off on me.” He looks down at his clearly druid-like clothes again and starts pulling at them with increasingly frantic tugs and twists. “How does this-- _nnn_ \--how do I get this _off_?”

"Henry?" 

He doesn't answer. When he can't find a knot for the fabric belt he gets it between his fists and pulls until the threads tear and he splits it all the way down with a loud _rrip_. He chucks it, but it's a long piece of fabric and it doesn't go very far. 

"Henry are you okay?" Ron asks this despite being fairly confident of the answer. Still, it's polite to ask. 

Henry is an honest person. "No, I'm not, I just…" He's pulling the outer layer off his torso now. There's still quite a few layers underneath, apparently. No wonder the commune isn't rank, if they're all this well insulated. "It's just really hot. In here. Is it hot in here?" He looks like his jumping jacks have upgraded to a strong run, but Ron knows he still hasn't done either of those things. 

"I'm a little chilly, actually," Ron admits. 

Henry throws open the window shutters and the breeze is cool on Ron's legs. He considers thigh high socks. 

Henry must be overheating, though, because he's sweating and breathing really loud. Ron's also pretty sure his hands are shaking. 

Ron has a sudden memory. In the dusty attic of his father's house. He doesn't have asthma but at that time he thought maybe he did and that he was dying and that his dad would catch up (even though he hadn't given chase) and he stumbled through the attic and looked up into this mirror and saw

Henry's leaning heavily on a table by the window, his eyes wide and watery. His chest heaves like there's not enough air in the world. Like he thinks he has asthma and his father's giving chase and he might die. 

Someone needs to tell him he won't die. 

Ron hates being the Chill One. Oh crap. What if Henry passes out? What does Darryl usually do? Everything about Darryl seems, suddenly, infinitely out of reach. Oh man what if Ron is freaking out? Ron can't freak out, Henry's freaking out. He has to be strong for Henry. 

What does Ron usually do? 

“Henry,” Ron starts. Stops. Starts again. “Henry, can you breathe--”

“ _Don’t,”_ Henry snaps at him between gasps. 

Ron takes a step closer. "You've gotta breathe—"

Henry shoots an arm out, keeping Rom away. " _Don't._ " He manages again. 

Ron's right though. Maybe there's some sort of trick to it. He heard somewhere about breathing through a "vent yasha"--

No, that wasn’t just from Somewhere, that was from a bird doing yoga that was Henry’s dad. Right, Henry's dad has that whole patronizing meditation yoga breathing thing. He’s not helpful. What else does Ron do. Sometimes Ron sits down. “Then-- Then maybe, you should probably sit dow--”

“ _Don’t tell me what to do_ ,” Henry practically hisses at him and subsequently runs out of breath. He doubles over and Ron has to catch his arms and balance him back against the wall. 

Okay, okay, uh, uhm, can’t tell him-- what else-- Ron would do-- but how does-- Henry sounded just like his kids, how does he get his kids--

“I forgot the alphabet!” Ron blurts. 

Henry cranes his neck up at him, gives Ron that Look, like he wants Ron to make sense in the way other people make sense and Henry’s not sure he’s willing to try to _make_ Ron make sense. “ _What?_ ”

“I-I forgot the alphabet,” Ron says again. “Can you tell it to me?”

Henry’s starting to look red in the face and Ron’s not sure if it’s from lack of oxygen or getting pissed. “ _Geeze_ , Ron.”

“Please?”

The Look is starting to dissolve into something less workable. 

“It’s important,” Ron insists. 

Henry curls back over himself and manages a frustrated growl before his Helpfulness takes over and he comes back up for air and to string the entire alphabet at Ron in a garbled, breathless, mess. “Do you get it now?”

Henry still looks pretty red. So Ron says, “I wasn’t listening.” 

“ _Ron_ \--”

“Can you do it again?”

Henry takes a huge breath so he can say, in one go, “It’s the _alphabet_ Ron it’s A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z!” He wheezes the rest of the air out and then takes another huge breath. “You want it backwards? We can do it backwards!” He sucks in more air to do it in one go again, “Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M--" another big breath "--L K J I H G F E D C B A _Ron_.” His chest heaves again, more slowly, to catch his breath. “You got it?”

Ron watches him breath for a second, to make sure it’s not picking up again. “Yeah, I got it,” he decides. 

“ _Good_.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Henry cycles through a few blessedly normal breaths, glaring at the wall. And then the glare falls away. He says, “Oh.” Another awkward moment where Henry seems more like Henry again. “Oh. Oh, Ron, I’m sorry--”

“It’s fine,” Ron says. He's just glad that worked somehow. He makes a mental note about angry alphabets. 

Henry shakes his head. “No, I shouldn’t have yelled at you--”

"You yell all the time."

"And I shouldn't do that. It--y’know--it felt like one thing when I barely knew you guys but you're all my good friends now and I want you to know you're important to me."

Henry says all of that with his normal level of ease and confidence. Stands there like this is a normal conversation. It seems to be, for the Oaks. Ron's ears feel like they’re ringing, but he thinks he's getting used to it. 

"You. You're really important to me, too," he says. 

Henry smiles. "Aw, thanks Ron."

He really is getting used to it. He manages a smile that reminds his face muscles of Samantha. 

" _Aw_ ," a small, cheery, voice suddenly says from the open window. There's a little bird sitting there on the ledge. Human words come out of its bird beak. "You two are such good _friends!_ "

"Dominos!" Henry says. "What are-- What are you doing here?" 

Dominos Pizza Bird gives a little flutter. "Oh I just heard the benefactor is coming and I wanted to--"

"Father's coming?" Henry gets very pale very quickly. Ron is mostly sure there is no vampire involved. He hasn't checked Barry's neck or teeth yet. He should try to do that. 

"Hey, Henry, your dad isn't undead, right?" he asks. 

Henry doesn't respond. 

Maybe that didn't make enough sense. "Cause, I mean, he wasn't undead _before_ right? Like if he is now, maybe--"

Henry shifts modes like someone flipped a switch. He gets his hands on Ron's shoulders and steers him towards the wardrobe with all the kid clothes in it. "You gotta hide." 

Dominos chirps. "Ooh! Would you like me to introduce your friend?" 

" _No_ , Dominos, please don't!" Henry insists while throwing open the wardrobe. 

"Sir Hen, I can provide an _excellent_ \--"

" _No_ ," he says even sharper this time. "No thank you! Please don't call me that!" 

Henry is pushing Ron between the colorful robes when something finally clicks from the last few hours. "Oh! Is this Hen guy you?" Ron asks. 

Henry delivers agitated vocal noise number four, the one that goes up at the end. 

The look on Henry's face reminds Ron of that mirror again. Henry's about to close the wardrobe doors, but Ron shoots his own arms out to hold them open.

"Wait, Henry, wait!" 

Henry keeps pushing. "Ron, he could walk through that door any second!" 

"You don't have to do this!" Ron says. 

That makes Henry stop. 

"Maybe-- I bet we could jump out that window, or maybe we'd both fit in here and he'd get confused and leave, or-- or maybe there's a secret adjoining bathroom!" 

Henry's searching Ron's face as he, but not with The Look. He's looking at Ron like he looks at things that make sense to him. Almost like that time he found Ron was right about Dennis and got all noble. Ron doesn't want Henry to be noble, he wants him to be okay. 

"Henry…?" 

Henry finally says, "I think I do." 

He shuts the wardrobe doors and Ron is left in the dark. But his shadow doesn’t move away from the slit between the wood. There’s a small _thnk_ where Ron imagines Henry’s forehead hitting the outside. All Ron can hear is his and Henry’s breathing.

So, so quietly, he hears Henry whisper, "A… B…" A loud breath. 

Ron presses his own hands against the dark inside of the doors. Whispers back, "C… D…" 

"E… F…" 

There's no knock before the door clicks open. 

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Queen [Aryashi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aryashi)


End file.
